Friday, November 18, 2005

I have been back from Mexico for over a month now, but still have lots of pictures and stories to share (so there is more to come). I have already posted a story about shopping for exotic fruit in Tepostlán. Here are pictures from one of the numerous travelling food markets in Mexico City. This one makes an appearance literally outside my hosts' window every Monday morning. It was a maze of colours, smells and unusual fruit.

On the above banner you can see red bananas on the right - I had never encountered these before. They had brownish-red skin, and the flesh was slightly pinkish. Tastewise they were a bit sweeter than 'normal' bananas (though not as sweet as the little 'dominican' mini bananas I've managed to leave out of the picture).

As it doesn't happen every day that an exotic food market camps outside my house, I went to buy some fruit and vegetables with my host Ada and kids. Poor vendors, they must have been very confused about this shy Estonian trying to take sneak pictures of them or their produce. Although this pulse&rice seller started arranging his hair in order to look nicer:)

Here are lots of different chilli peppers:The dark brown ones on the left are ancho peppers, which are called poblano peppers when fresh and dark, almost purply green. As these are comparatively mild chillies, they are the most popular ones for stuffing:

Nicely arranged citrus fruit. My host Ada explained to me the difference between Mexican limes - which are tart, but mild & sweet enough to eat as they are - and the sour lime known as lime elsewhere..

Here are tuna-fruits or cactus fruits. They can be either red:

with this gorgeously red flesh:

or they can be green:

This is cherimoya, which has huge black seeds in it and very juicy and tasty pale flesh:

And here is dragon fruit, also known as pitahaya or strawberry pear. I didn't think it had a particularly interesting flavour, as it was bordering on watery. But it does look beautiful:

Some tiny citrus fruits:

And finally, a happy vegetable family, the Chayotes or the Christophenes:) Here is the hairy father:

4 comments:

Hi Pille, thank you for sharing those wonderful photos ! Just as Ilva has written I also would like to taste them all. You know my job has to to with "running" pics and I must admit that also for filming such markets - regarding people in action, colurs, sound, atmosphere - always are a wonderland, and they tell so much about how people live in this very country. The only thing you can never have in pics, whether running or still, is the fragrance, what a pity...(mostly ;-) Have a nice Sunday, angelika